


The Spider

by Impsc



Series: Lost Sides in Neverland [on hiatus] [6]
Category: Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie, Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders-centric, Gen, Kid Sides (Sanders Sides), janus and virgil are only in it a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:29:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28145382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impsc/pseuds/Impsc
Summary: Remus gets something for Virgil
Series: Lost Sides in Neverland [on hiatus] [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997491
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	The Spider

**Author's Note:**

> there's talk about eating bugs, and there is a beetle and several spiders in this story (also it's almost Virgil's birthday, so maybe this is for that also sort of)

Remus woke up with a beetle on his nose. He scrunched up his face. It didn’t move. He tried to poke it with his tongue, but he couldn’t reach it.

Eh, he didn’t really feel like eating any bugs right now. Plus, Janus and Virgil said that would make him sick. They didn’t know anything, he’d eaten so many bugs without them knowing.

He slowly moved his hands toward the bug, ready to snatch it.

He brought his hands down, but at the last second the beetle flew away, and Remus smacked himself in the nose. Missed!

The beetle flew over a sleeping Janus and landed on a sleeping Virgil. Remus leaned over carefully. Just gotta be faster this time…

SMACK!

“OUCH!”

“OOF!”

“Get back here!” Remus bounced up and down on the bed, trying to reach the bug, which was now buzzing around the ceiling.

“Hey, watch out!” said Virgil, trying to escape the bed while being flung around by all the bouncing.

Janus was in the same boat, but he was trying to grab on to Remus somehow, saying “Remus, _stop_!”

“Gotcha!” yelled Remus with an extra high leap, wrapping his hands around the bug. Unfortunately, in his enthusiasm, he had jumped a bit too far, and now came crashing to the much more solid floor. “Got it!” he said, scrambling to his feet. “Guys I caught the bug!” He turned to Janus and Virgil, who both looked thoroughly mussed up and also slightly upset. Hm, wonder why that was?

“ _Remus!_ ” Uh oh, Janus’s mean voice.

“Yes, Janus?”

Janus sighed. “Just- either give me the bug or let it outside. And next time you see a bug when everyone is sleeping, just _leave_ it okay? Or at least don’t crush me and Virgil trying to catch it.”

Oh. Remus supposed getting bounced on probably would wake you up, but wasn’t it a fun way to start the day? Oh well. Remus clambered up the tree roots and let the beetle out between them. When he came back down, Janus and Virgil were having breakfast. Well, trying to, anyway. Janus was splitting up their last banana into three pieces. One of the pieces had a sizable black spot on it. Remus snatched it out of Janus’s hands and shoved it in his mouth.

“Hey!” Janus protested. “I’m handing them out!”

“What?” Remus replied as Virgil snatched his piece. “I thought you didn’t like the gross parts.”

Janus still looked annoyed but ate his piece without saying anything else. “Well, since we’re out, I’m going to have to go get more today, which means you two stay here. I clearly can’t trust you to know what is good for eating and what isn’t.”

Remus shrugged and Virgil grunted noncommittally and went over to his sewing supplies while Janus put on his hat and gloves and got ready to go.

Remus frowned. “Well what am I supposed to do all day then?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure you’ll think of something,” said Janus, waving a hand. “Just stay safe and out of trouble.”

“I’m not very good at that, you know,” said Remus, rolling back and forth on his feet.

“Yes, unfortunately I do,” said Janus with exasperation, and with that he went up the exit and was gone.

Hmm. Remus was bored already. He looked at Virgil. He was repairing his cape, along with quite a few of the knees of Remus’s pants. “Hey, Virgil, wanna play a game?”

Virgil didn’t look up. “Not really.”

“Wanna go on an adventure?”

“Not at the moment, and Janus said stay safe.”

“Wanna explore somewhere?”

Virgil finally looked up. “Look, why don’t you just go entertain yourself for a while? I’m kind of busy here.” He went back to his sewing.

Remus supposed he could do something by himself, but what though? Pirate hunt was clearly off the table if he was alone, plus that would certainly get him in trouble. He could explore somewhere, but that was never as fun by himself because he had to show the others later anyway. Remus crossed his arms and plopped on the floor. How come ‘stay safe’ means ‘don’t do anything fun’?

Remus looked at Virgil again. Virgil was always saying he was tired, but right now he really looked that way. He’d only seen circles like that under the eyes of the pirates. Virgil could use something nice, probably. Remus’s eyes wandered around the underground lair. Eventually they landed on a spiderweb in the corner. Remus looked from the web to Virgil pulling his needle through the fabric of his cloak.

Aha! Remus knew just the thing.

“See you later Virgil, I’m going.”

“Okay, just don’t get into trouble where Janus can see you.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remus grabbed his whacking stick and clambered out of the hideout. He was going to find Virgil the _best_ bug.

* * *

Remus decided to start looking at his best bug eating spot. He didn’t think there would be any amazing bugs there, but maybe he could follow one of them to its house and then there would be more there. Ooo, maybe he could look for spiderwebs, too! He immediately started searching the trees for webs.

After a few minutes of wandering around with his head up in the trees he realized he’d been going the wrong way for a while. Whoops. Now he’d have to climb a tree to figure out where he was- wait! That’s a _big_ spiderweb!

Remus held his hand up next to it. It was like twice as big! No spider, though. Remus poked it and it immediately collapsed all over his hand. Whoops again.

Oh, look, an even bigger one!

Remus followed the webs as they got bigger and bigger, occasionally tripping over some that had apparently been built in holes in the ground, but he still hadn’t seen any spiders yet. He _had_ seen several bugs stuck in the webs. They’d been getting bigger and bigger too, and Remus had put a lot of them into his pockets for later.

Remus had decided that Virgil would probably want a really big, really cool spider. I mean, that’s what he’d want, so.

At this point, Remus had started using his whacking stick to knock the webs out of the way, as lots of them were now taller than him. He wondered where all the noises had gone. Then he saw the bat.

It was stuck in a web a few feet from him, and Remus immediately climbed over some other webs to get a closer look. It’s wings were spread out against the web, as if it had tried to flap them but gotten stuck, and it started wiggling and chirping as Remus approached. Remus didn’t know that spiders ate bats. It looked really freaked out though, so Remus swung his whacking stick all around it to get rid of the web. It fell on the ground, still squeaking and trying to flap its wings, but it only got more stuck in the webbing that was still covering it. Remus snatched it up, catching bugs had made him good at that, brushed off the webs, and let it go, throwing it as hard as he could to get it over the rest of the webs in the trees.

He was watching it flap away into the night when he became aware of something casting a large shadow across his vision. He turned around.

The spider was enormous. At least two Remus tall! It took a few steps toward him, and Remus was fascinated as he watched it click its pincers together. Then he frowned as he realized that this one was probably too big to take home to Virgil. He’d never get it through the entrance.

“Hello, spider!” Remus called up to it. “Do you know where I can find a smaller spider? I’m looking for a present for my friend!”

It clicked and took another step toward him.

“Hello?”

It rushed forward suddenly, nearly knocking him over. Remus backed up quickly, through the hole he’d made in the web earlier.

“Rude!”

It clicked again and made to rush forward once more, but Remus took a quick step back and brandished his stick.

“Nuh uh!” Remus slammed his stick on the ground and dragged a line into the dirt in between him and the spider. Remus leaned on his stick and stared the spider dead in its many eyes.

“If you wanna get me, I _dare_ you to cross this line!”

There was a pause.

The spider skittered back and forth, but didn’t move forward.

“Come on, I dare you!”

They stared at each other.

The spider backed up a few steps.

Remus stuck his tongue out at it.

It backed up a few more steps, then ran into the trees.

Remus crowed with excitement. Victory!

Still no spider though. Remus began to head back, since Janus would probably consider giant spiders to be trouble, so he’d have to look for a smaller one somewhere else (even though this was clearly the best place for it, _Janus_ ). He got away from the bigger webs and plopped down in front of one of the web-filled holes.

He was trying to think of where else he could possibly look for spiders when two little legs poked out of the hole in front of him.

Remus gasped but quickly shushed himself. He took some of the bugs from earlier out of his pocket and made a small trail from the hole to his lap and waited.

After a few minutes, two more legs popped out, slowly followed by four more legs and the rest of the body.

The tarantula was a bit bigger than Remus’s hand, which he could tell because it eventually followed his small trail of bugs and ended up in his lap. He pet it very gently and it relaxed happily, giving him little taps on his fingers. So cute!

* * *

Remus rushed back to the hideout, carefully holding the spider, who seemed to be mostly content hanging onto his shirt as he ran.

“Virgil Virgil Virgil!” Remus clambered down the entryway to Virgil, who was putting his sewing materials back after having jumped awake when Remus yelled and scattered them. “I got something for you!”

“What?” Virgil looked up from his cleaning, confused. “You, got something? For me?” Virgil suddenly narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Is it something disgusting? Is this a joke?”

“No, no, no, not this time!” said Remus, carefully concealing the tarantula under his hands, giving the appearance that he was holding his hands over his heart, which made Virgil even more suspicious as Remus approached.

Remus carefully lowered his hands and showed the tarantula to Virgil, trying to keep himself from bouncing with excitement. “Look, see, it’s cute! Happy birthday, Virgil!”

Virgil’s eyes widened as he held out his hands and the tarantula crawled into them. “Birthday? Is it my birthday? This is for me?”

Now that the tarantula was no longer in his hands Remus was free to bounce as happily as he wanted to. “I don’t know, it could be your birthday, I just thought you would like it, do you like it, do you?!”

Virgil stroked the spider gently and it began to crawl up his arm. “I, it’s, um-“ This was the nicest thing Virgil had ever received, not to mention the nicest thing Remus had maybe ever done. “It’s fine.”

“Oh, _yes_ , I knew you would love it!” Remus swept Virgil and the tarantula up in a bear hug, lifting them off the ground.

It was at this moment that Janus returned with an armful of food.

“Jan! Virgil got a tarantula!”

“He _what_?”


End file.
